Editor’s note: The Rockford Register Star Editorial Board does not solicit comment on opinion content in advance of publication. Opinions are just that, and community members are free to agree or disagree. Below is an unedited email Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey sent to the Editorial Board on Sunday morning. Morrissey sent the email, which included an email he sent to Rockford aldermen, in response to a story in which aldermen weighed in on Rockford Police Chief Chet Epperson’s future and an editorial that called for Epperson’s resignation.

Gentlemen,

Please see my communication to the City Council below. Unfortunately, I was not asked by you to comment on your article, nor was I asked to comment before today’s editorial. This seems to be a recurring theme of your editorial page of not giving me a chance to comment before you come out with an editorial. Clearly, you have made up your mind.

You have many new members of your editorial board, however, who might benefit from the brief history lesson and perspective contained in my email. For those of you who have been around for some time, I am amazed at your willingness to enable the conduct of the PBPA and ignore their history of attacking avery chief who has tried to make changes in the organization.

I have no plans on asking Chief Epperson to resign. This current action of the PBPA against him is ludicrous and your paper giving it credibility is a unbelievable to me.

Mayor Morrissey

Dear Aldermen,

I have had discussions with several Council members regarding the general status of the PBPA’s disputes with Chief Epperson and the specific status of the issue regarding the Chief’s directions during our Department’s response to a request for a welfare check at the residence of NAACP leader, Lloyd Johnston.

Let me start by saying that I am happy to discuss these issues in a private conversation with a Council member or in a closed session. Let me add that I am going to be detailed in this email, especially for the benefit of the 7 new aldermen that were not here for many of the most contentious years. Let me also add that it is extremely disappointing to see public comments in the Register Star todayy regarding these issues. The idea of commenting publicly on this issue plays directly into the long-standing PBPA “divide and conquer” tactic. I respectfully request that those of you who publicly called for the chief to resign do no do that again. It only emboldens the union in their divide and conquer approach.

In the private discussions I have had so far, I have explained that the type of issues and concerns we’re dealing with today, while not pleasant and not desirable, they are very typical to the type we have been dealing with since I was elected. Moreover, these types of issues are not unique to Chief Epperson and my administration. They have been a recurring issue between the PBPA and several of our Chiefs of Police.

I have attached an article from 1988 called, “A House Divided.” This article describes the battle between the PBPA and the chief at that time, Chief Fitzpatrick. Like today, Chief Fitzpatrick then was dealing with incidents like officer involved use of force. There were efforts at the time to change the culture within the department. As a result of those issues, you can note, for example, the claim from the union of historically low “morale”.

I will also be forward a second article that came in conjunction with Chief Nielsen’s retirement. In that article, you will note Chief Nielsen’s comment that one of the things that was involved in his decision to retire was the “devastating” impact on him of the PBPA’s threat during the preceding contract negotiations that they would hold a no-confidence vote against him.

As you will see, conflict between the PBPA and our Chief’s of police is not a new thing. In fact, this has been a common issue in departments around the country when a department is under scrutiny and change efforts are being attempted. The Chief is not perfect. Nobody is perfect. But the Chief has done everything I have asked of him and I have been proud to support the Chief in his efforts. The Chief is not working on his own, he is working with my administration and the City Council. In fact, during his time as chief, many accomplishments have been made, including the following:

We have become a fully accredited agency, joining a select percentage of departments around the United States. As part of the Chief’s efforts, he early on invited an outside audit and corrected the way certain crimes involving multiple victims were reporting.
We have completely updated and modernized our “Use of Force” Policy and procedures which helped insulate us from a possible Department of Justice civil rights lawsuit (which was requested by several local citizens after the Barmore case.)
We developed an “Early Warning System” to help identify and coach officers who demonstrated potential risks to the Department and the community. This system was in place before the Barmore case and further demonstrated our Department’s good faith efforts to maintain and manage our Department;
We developed and continue to run a “CompStat” accountability system, which is open and transparent to the public. We continuously examine our data and share that information with our other departments at our RockStat meetings.
We have formalized our partnerships with the State Police, Illinois Department of Corrections, Winnebago County Sheriff, other local agencies, and numerous federal agencies to create the Winnebago County Violent Crime Task Force. We are now meeting quarterly to publicly review our joint efforts. Those joint efforts have helped us this year to reduce aggravated discharges by 30%.
We have supported the RAVEN partnership to reduce violence and sought and received a Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority grant to become the first Department in the State to formally share information with the State Department of Corrections to help prisoner re-entry efforts and reduce recidivism. We hold monthly call-in efforts to address those coming out of the DOC and hold them and ourselves accountable.
We have vastly improved our outreach to the minority communities of our City. The Chief has personally developed strong relationships with many members of our community that had become isolated from and cynical towards our department. (Incidentally, I doubt the Chief would even be scrutinized by the PBPA right now if the welfare check in question had been a white male leader living on the City’s East side instead of NAACP leader Lloyd Johnston. Instead, because he had the audacity to investigate the conduct of his officers, the Union retaliated against the Chief.)
We have taken on extremely tough collective bargaining efforts to achieve significant improvements and efficiencies in our ability to manage the department. This covers a lot of issues including more authority to discipline officers and authority to begin our geographic policing in District 2.
I stand by Chief Epperson and would put his record up against any Chief this City has ever had. He has helped fix a ton of problems that he inherited; and he inherited many of those because the culture within the Department has historically resisted change and the PBPA was successful in intimidating many chiefs from making tough changes.

Ultimately, my observation is that the union does not want to be managed and they have a historic, demonstrated, consistent record of resisting change and resisting the idea of them being managed. I will never give in to those tactics. The current case before us proves this point.

They have come right out and stated that they don’t think the chief of police has the authority to direct an officer to not go in a house and instead should wait for a supervisor. Are you kidding me? They don’t want to be managed by anyone. Not this chief, not past chiefs, and certainly not a future chief if they know that all they have to do is raise the heat or threaten a no-confidence vote and the chief goes away. Some other mayor may cave in to such tactics and throw their chief under the bus, but I’ll be damned if I ever do. No way. Never.

Their tactics are intentional and clearly demonstrate their attempt to divide the Council and the community. We can’t let that happen.

Early on during the 276 to 6 fight, they personally suggested to me that they would not attack me if I was willing to abandon my support of the Chief. I refused to do so and then became a target of their attacks. Their tactics against me have included, among others, intimidation and slander. When the 276-6 web site was still up, they sunk so low as to allow a posting suggesting that my infant son who died after 40 days of life was an illegitimate son fathered by the Chief. The current Union President accused me of “not being a real west-sider” and released operational information regarding a security detail assigned to me when an investigation was proceeding regarding a potential death threat against me.

I wish I could fully explain why police officers and police unions don’t manage conflict the same way as fire departments and fire unions. All I can tell you is that these patterns are demonstrated all over the Country and reflect differences in culture, recruiting, training, and operations.

I am proud of the chief. I am honored to work with him. I don’t live in the safest neighborhood in the City, which most of you probably know. But I personally feel safer and more confident about my family’s safety because he is our Chief. Moreover, there simply is no history to suggest that replacing the Chief would do anything more than encourage the PBPA to do more of the same BS they always do. I have not done that in much tougher times than this and I certainly will not do it now.

I can discuss more in detail and person and am expecting to go into closed session to discuss these items Monday, which is where this conversation should remain.